xch-blockchain/BUILD_TIMELORD.md

Building timelords

The Linux and MacOS chiavdf binary wheels currently exclude an executable required to run a Timelord. If you want to run a Timelord on Linux or MacOS, you must install the wheel from source (which may require some additional development packages) while in the virtual environment.

. ./activate

chmod +x ./install-timelord.sh
sh install-timelord.sh

If the compile fails, it's likely due to a missing dependency. The script install-timelord.sh attempts to install required build dependencies for Linux and MacOS before invoking pip to build from the source python distribution of chiavdf.

The install-timelord.sh install script leverages two environmental variables that the chiavdf wheels can use to specify how to build. The service that the Timelord uses to run the VDF and prove the Proof of Time is vdf_client and vdf_bench is a utility to get a sense of a given CPU's iterations per second.

• To build vdf_client set the environment variable BUILD_VDF_CLIENT to "Y". export BUILD_VDF_CLIENT=Y.
• Similarly, to build vdf_bench set the environment variable BUILD_VDF_BENCH to "Y". export BUILD_VDF_BENCH=Y.

Building and running Timelords in Windows x86-64 is not yet supported.